Food is distributed during lunchtime at the summer youth program at Lideta Mariam Church in Alitena. (photo: CNEWA)

Earlier this summer, CNEWA launched a campaign to help the suffering men, women and children in the Horn of Africa, hundreds of thousands of them enduring the worst drought in decades.

“The food needs here are critical,” CNEWA’s president Msgr. John E. Kozar said in an interview with Catholic News Service during a pastoral visit to the region.

Thanks to the generosity of our donors, CNEWA has been able to respond to those needs. CNEWA released more than $231,000 in funds in three installments this summer. We have just posted a report online, with an intimate look at what the Ethiopian Catholic Eparchy of Adigrat was able to do with these funds. Thousands have benefited — and the gratitude expressed has been humbling.

We found especially poignant this anecdote, describing a visit to one family:

As we left the family, Bisrat felt ashamed because according to local tradition, she couldn’t offer a cup of coffee to her visitors. But she went to an inner part of the house and returned with 10 eggs and offered them to us to take home. We were deeply touched by her generosity. Looking at the situation, the words of Sister Meaza still haunt me: “The less they have, the more generous they are.”

These are some of the people CNEWA is privileged to serve — and we remain profoundly humbled and grateful to all those who have made it possible for us to bring to those in need some measure of comfort, nourishment and hope.

Read the full report here. And if you’ve like to know how you can help, visit this page. If you can offer nothing else, please offer a prayer for our brothers and sisters in the Horn of Africa — and know they are praying, as well, for you.